


Past Tense

by qwanderer



Series: Reborn Fox [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Changing Tenses, Gen, Lydia is Perfect, M/M, POV Stiles, Pre-Slash, Spoilers, Stiles Has Panic Attacks, Warning: Theo, Werefox Stiles, because I scramble the episode to suit my whims, because reasons, he is not in the story but his presence is felt, slight suicidal ideology, sorry - Freeform, spoilers for s5e9: Lies of Omission, symbolic ones, yes still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 11:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4605573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He held his phone, and breathed slow, and waited for Lydia.</p>
<p>She swirled into his passenger seat like a breaking wave, slightly-frizzed hair and neat white-and-pink dress barely spotted with rain, followed by an umbrella printed with Monet's water lilies before the door swung shut on it all.</p>
<p>"Stiles," she said, eyes unflinchingly on his face. "What happened?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Past Tense

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the Stiles-perspective version of _woke up to you_ , the story I wrote after seeing Ouroboros, but now that I've seen Lies of Omission, I'm including a lot of the events from that episode, just in a different order. The rainy confrontation happens much earlier, and Stiles and Lydia telling Scott about Parrish's extracurricular activities happens much later. Also, of course, there are new, completely incompatible events. Of the werefox!Stiles kind.
> 
> This also has Stiles's perspective on the second fic in the series, _worth it,_ which may or may not slot in somewhere before the end of _woke up to you_. I won't know until I go to write the rest of the series, which might be after the next episode airs, so I can work in more canon events. Basically the whole timeline for the series is a little wonky and intertwined, but it should pull together somehow in the end.
> 
> I've decided I'm going to take the underage warnings off of these since no action is being had. I'm just a little cautious about such things.

_Say you believe me._

_We can’t kill people! Do you believe that?_

_What do I do about this? What do you want me to do, okay? Scott, just tell me how to fix this, all right? Please just tell me. What do you want me to do?_

* * *

Scott walked away, and Stiles scrambled to get into his Jeep, made it and shut the door just before the panic attack closed over his chest and made it impossible to breathe. 

Scott didn't believe him. 

Had he been lying? What had his heart done, when he'd told Scott that he hadn't had a choice? Because he felt guilty. He felt that moment weigh on him. He had had a choice, to pull the pin or to keep scrambling away and, yeah, probably die, probably get his dad killed, but it had been a choice. 

Stiles had had a choice, and he'd killed Donovan. 

Rain pounded on the Jeep's top, and there was no getting away from it, there was no air. There was no.... 

Stiles scrambled for his phone. Couldn't call his dad. Not yet. He'd want to know... things. Not Scott, obviously. Malia... she didn't need this, not on top of everything. 

Lydia. 

His hands were shaking so badly he could hardly hold the phone, but he got it close enough to his ear that he could hear her "Hello? ...Stiles?" 

He couldn't get any words out, and he refused to voice the whine that wanted to escape. She could probably hear him breathing. 

"Stiles, I thought we'd gotten past this kind of thing when you started going out with Malia," she said, and the voice was just like her, crisp and smart and founded in well-hidden warmth. Just the normalcy of it made him feel a little more grounded. 

"Okay, just keep breathing," she continued. "You're going to be fine. Something happened?" 

"Scott," he gasped. "Scott, he knows things... but he won't believe me...." 

"Slow down," she told him. "You're somewhere safe?" 

"In the jeep... outside the library." 

"All right, I'm coming to you," she told him. "I'll be there in five minutes. Just keep breathing slow for me. Can you do that?" 

"Yeah," he said gratefully, and listened to the footsteps, door slamming and the rattle of keys before she finally hung up with one last command. 

"Slow. For me." 

For Lydia, he could do anything. 

He held his phone, and breathed slow, and waited for Lydia. 

She swirled into his passenger seat like a breaking wave, slightly-frizzed hair and neat white-and-pink dress barely spotted with rain, followed by an umbrella printed with Monet's water lilies before the door swung shut on it all. 

"Stiles," she said, eyes unflinchingly on his face. "What happened?" 

Stiles took a long breath. "I did something," he told Lydia. "I was going to tell Scott. I was. But I couldn't. And then he knew, and...." He shook his head. "It was worse. Worse than I thought it would be. I'm not... I guess I'm not the person he thought I was." He swallowed hard, trying not to let the whole thing drag him down again. Then Lydia reached out and took his hand, warm and firm. 

His breathing slowed. When he could again, he raised his eyebrows at her - but didn't let go of her hand. 

"Well I'm not going to challenge a practically feral werecoyote's territory, I'm not that crazy. But you needed something." 

"Oh, come on, Malia's... getting better." He tried not to sound too uncertain about that. "And I'm not her 'territory'." 

"Well," said Lydia, with a little tilt of her head, "I'm still not kissing you again." 

"I know," said Stiles. "I'm still glad you're here." 

She smiled, softly for her, and let that rest for a minute before focusing her sharp gaze on him again. 

"What did you do?" she asked, hand still firmly wrapped around his. "What is it that Scott's being so blockheaded about?" 

"I k - " he started, but couldn't make the shapes of the words. It had come out so badly last time. He'd lost Scott. He'd let Scott down. "I can't. I can't tell you. But maybe, if we found the bodies... I could show you." 

"Oh," she said softly. "One of the Chimeras?" 

He nodded shakily. 

"You're okay," she told him. "I know you, Stiles. You're not a murderer. All those bodies? They're because of the Doctors. They're the responsibility of the people who made them into creatures with powers they couldn't control." 

"Not this one." 

"We'll find them," said Lydia. "We'll find the bodies. And then I'll judge for myself." 

Right now, Lydia was his best friend in the entire world. 

* * *

The next afternoon they went out into the woods, looking for the Nemeton. 

The Nemeton did not want to be found. 

Stiles went on a whole vision quest to know where it was, and Lydia was a Banshee. They should have been able to find it. 

"The Banshee is having an off day," Lydia told him when he asked. 

Stiles wasn't sure if he wanted to find the bodies, anyway, except that he was living in horrible suspense, wondering what everybody else would think about it if Scott, his best friend - his _previous_ best friend - had taken it so badly. 

"We need to tell Parrish. He's been taking them. He can find it again." 

"Are you sure that's a good idea? We don't know what's up with him. How he'll react." Stiles was not that sanguine at the moment about people reacting in the way he wanted or expected them to. 

"He needs to know," Lydia told him pointedly. "It's always better when people know." 

Stiles took a breath. "Yeah," he agreed. "Okay." 

* * *

They didn't get out of the woods before trouble found them. 

The Dread Doctors kind of trouble. 

Because, of course. Things couldn't just go right for once. Not in Beacon Hills. Not for Stiles. 

They grabbed the two from behind, arms like pincers around Stiles's biceps. The shifting blurriness made it all feel like another bad dream. But the pain was real. 

"This one's stable," said the one holding Lydia. "Immune. We can discount her." 

The third pulled back the collar of Stiles's shirt. "But this," the Doctor said, peering at the mutant Wendigo bite, "is outside of our parameters." 

"What are you talking about?" Stiles yelled at them, kicking out. "You didn't seem too concerned with your experiments attacking people before! Why the hell would I be any different?!" 

They held fast, talking around him. "His tissues have retained an unusual amount of plasticity. He could adapt. It's an interesting trait," said the one holding Lydia. 

"He's a complication," answered the one staring at the bite. "He can't be allowed to contaminate the experiment pool." 

The other two nodded in eerie unison. The one in front of him pulled out a blade, and slit Stiles's throat. 

Lydia screamed, and the sound was everything. Stiles couldn't see or feel or smell anything more. But he was on the ground now, he realized vaguely, the Doctors' hands gone, warmth gushing out of him. 

They'd killed him. 

This was what it was like to die. 

"Stiles, Stiles, Stiles, stay with me, okay? You're not dying, I promise. I'll find a way to fix this." She swore fiercely, and one of her warm, strong hands clamped down on his throat. "I'm going to call Scott. If he's good for anything, he's good for this. So just hold on. Do it for me." 

Stiles held on, Lydia's voice and her hand keeping him alive. 

"Scott, you have to come," she said angrily into her phone before he would have had a chance to speak. "You have to come _now._ We're near the Nemeton and Stiles is bleeding really badly and I don't know what they did to him." She waited impatiently for a response. "No, that's not fast enough!" she burst out. "We went without you because I was sure we weren't going to die, I was so sure, Scott, I screamed, I listened and I didn't hear anything, but maybe I was wrong, because Stiles is going to die, he's going to die if you don't get here right now, Scott. We can't get to the car and he's bleeding a lot, and... you need to come. You need to give him the Bite. It's the only way he has a chance." 

It was raining again. Warm rain? No. Tears. Lydia was crying. 

Stiles had never meant to make Lydia cry. But she was. She was crying over him. He'd disappointed her. He'd disappointed Scott, and his dad, and Malia, and everyone. 

He couldn't hold on. And a little part of him didn't want to. 

A little part of him just wanted to let everything go. 

* * *

There's light, and there's yelling. 

His ears are huge and sensitive, and he jumps up quick, darting away from the huge, towering, screaming forms. He doesn't know what to do about them. He doesn't like the yelling. It doesn't make sense. 

The forest stretches out around him, peaceful, bright, silent. Full of interesting little noises and interesting animally smells and pools of warm light and cool shade. 

He runs, he runs so fast on his four quick little paws, and soon he's away, wondering at all the things he can sense about the forest now. Where the bugs and fuzzy warm animals in their burrows are all hiding, where they've been, where there are streams and caves, where the berries are that attract fat little mice. He wants to find out all of it, every inch. 

Squirrels are fun to chase, but he's no good at climbing trees after them, so he sets his sights on the mice. Catches one, after much trial and error. Shakes it, kills it, without much thought before eating. 

That's what mice are for. 

He chases after more. Learning their moves. Watching them dodge his pounces. 

There's a deep huff nearby, a large animal he hadn't noted. Familiar smell. He looks up. 

Sourwolf! 

He barks a greeting and the wolf barks back, watching him. 

These are the things he knows: The forest is the world and mice are food and Sourwolf is his den-mate. He bounds happily to press his nose into thick, black fur. 

Sourwolf smells him, then steps back to stare at him, like he isn't sure they're really friends. The fox doesn't particularly like this, but it seems familiar. Seems like his usual Sourwolf. So he goes into Sourwolf's den, sniffs around, and settles himself in. 

This is where he sleeps. 

* * *

Stiles dreamed. 

Stiles dreamed about Scott stepping back, frightened, unsure. Stiles dreamed about being Nogitsune. Stiles dreamed about his life pouring out through his throat. Stiles dreamed about pulling himself together out of pieces of the void that were left. 

Stiles dreamed about Malia's worried eyebrows in the hall. Stiles dreamed about Lydia crying. 

Stiles dreamed of the Dread Doctors in masks, the Dread Doctors killing Scott, his father and Malia. He dreamed of the Dread Doctors taking off their masks, and underneath were the faces of Peter, Theo, and himself. 

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe - 

Sourwolf's teeth are in his scruff, Sourwolf's warm fur is all around him, the forest is quiet. 

The fox settles and dreams of chasing candy-colored mice. 

* * *

Sourwolf smells like plans today. 

The fox follows the wolf through the forest, even when it starts to not smell like the forest anymore. There are still squirrels and birds, but not so many trees, and lots of loud machines that bother the fox's big, delicate ears. 

There's a den in front of them, and one of the yelling creatures is just inside, and the other is further in, and another like them. The fox isn't sure how he feels about this, but he lets Sourwolf carry him in by the scruff. 

The creatures aren't so loud today, at least. They make noises at each other, getting a little louder, but nothing like before. The tallest one picks up the fox. Pets his fur. It's okay, somehow. 

Funny, he smells like denmate and wolf, too. 

The fox is.... 

The fox? 

Wait. How long has he been a fox? 

Then the tallest one rumbles angrily at the other from before, and the fox decides that this is too much, too strange, too stressful, and the fox, he knows what he knows, and without the forest and the mice, Sourwolf is what he knows. 

He goes and curls up with the wolf again. 

The others make more noises at each other, and Sourwolf watches them intently, ears pricked, as if the sounds mean something to him. 

Maybe they're meant to. 

The fox turns his attention on them. They are familiar. 'Fox' means him, he thinks, but then so does... 'Stiles'? What kind of a noise is that? 

'Derek' means Sourwolf. The tallest one is saying that at the wolf, and the wolf is responding, uncurling himself from... Stiles. The tall one is an Alpha, and his eyes glow red and he growls at Sourwolf. 

Who is suddenly one of them, but with even less fur. 

Shifters. Werewolves. There are things he knows that he never wanted to know. But he trusts... Derek. 

Stiles-fox is content to listen until he hears another sound he knows, one he doesn't like. 

Theo. 

But the tall one... the other werewolf... _Scott..._ is shaking his head in a way that promises there won't be any of whatever Theo is. And then he bends down to talk to Stiles-fox. 

"Stiles." He's holding out his long, furless paws. He smells like love and desperation. And Stiles listens hard. 

"Stiles, you're my best friend, okay? I will always listen to you. Just come back to me." 

Of course. Scott! Best friend! Stiles yips. 

"Will you come back to me? Stiles?" 

_Yes! Of course! If you're still my best friend._ But a fox mouth won't make those noises. Stiles needs to shift too. He pushes towards Scott, pressing into his touch. 

"Okay," says Scott, and then he growls again, deep and low and terrible. 

There's - there was - shifting, twisting, bones and muscles growing. There was a cold floor where there used to be fur. There was Scott. Derek. Lydia. Malia. And butt-naked, human Stiles. 

Typical. 

"Hey guys, what's happening?" he greeted his audience. 

His pack. 

There were smiles all around, and Scott hugging him and saying, "I should've listened. I should've paid more attention." 

"Hey, buddy," Stiles said tentatively. "I'm okay. We're okay. Right?" 

"Yeah. Yeah, we're okay." Scott squeezed him tighter. "I know you. I know you're a good person. I should have trusted that. But I wasn't really feeling like myself." 

"Hey, tell me about it," said Stiles. "I kinda forgot I wasn't always a fox." 

Derek, Malia and Lydia left for the front office to hunt down some clothes for the newly naked shifters, and Scott looked thoughtfully at Stiles. 

"You and Lydia really went out to try and find the missing bodies?" 

Stiles's face screwed up. "Yeah, well, explaining in words what happened... with Donovan... didn't really seem to be working out for me. I think I was a little done with using words." 

Scott's eyes widened. "And the body? That would explain it?" 

"Yeah, well, before the whole shifter-powers thing," Stiles said, making slight jazz-hands, "I doubt I could have impaled him through the heart with a support beam on _purpose._ It just... it happened. Like that. Like a flash of lightning. I mean, I was trying to stop him. When I realized he was dying... I kind of wished I could go back and do it differently. Maybe not kill him. But it was just a moment. Just a tug at the wrong time." 

When Stiles looked back at his Alpha, Scott's eyes were red and shadowed, face halfway to Beta form. 

"What?" Stiles asked. 

"Theo is scum," Scott said, "and if I see him again, I will throw him off my territory." 

"Well, good," said Stiles, slightly lost. "I support this Alpha-ly decision. What turned the tables?" 

"He lied to turn me against you. He lies like a sociopath. Heart steady as a metronome." 

"Oh," answered Stiles. "Yeah. He does give off the serial killer vibe." 

"Have you known many?" 

"Some. Only spent time with the two." He moved his hand at an angle against his cheekbone to indicate the most visible bruise Gerard Argent had given him, then made a gagging motion to recall the Nogitsune vomiting him out. "And that's not counting Miss Blake's class, or the time Peter was stalking me. Just in-depth one-on-one time." 

"Right," Scott said, lowering his eyes. "I forget, sometimes, how much you've gone through because of the Packs." 

"Well, luckily," Stiles quipped, looking down at his all-but-forgotten nakedness, "sometimes, so do I." 

Scott chuckled, clapping him on the shoulder. 

They really were going to be okay. 

* * *

Stiles-fox teases his playmates endlessly. 

They both smell annoyed-but-fond about it, at first, but the more he pokes at Sourwolf, the happier he smells, and the more he pokes at Malia-coy, the angrier she gets. 

This is playtime, though, and Malia-coy should play with him! 

Lia-coy snaps at him and bites into his leg. That's not playing! That's fighting! Stiles-fox just looks at her. 

Sourwolf snarls and Lia-coy jumps away, going to Scott. Sourwolf licks at his leg worriedly. Stiles just sighs. It'll heal. 

Sourwolf snarls as if Stiles-fox is his territory. And maybe Stiles-fox is, just a little. 

Stiles isn't. But that's for other times. That's for being human, head busy with worries and plans. 

Right now, Stiles-fox belongs to Sourwolf, his territory to guard and protect and keep and snuggle. A little like, but differently from, the way they are all Scott's. 

It's fall, right now, but somewhere deep in his foxy guts, Stiles knows that come spring, belonging to Sourwolf will mean more than snuggling. 

He isn't sure if Sourwolf knows too, but they can worry about it when they're human. 


End file.
